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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27150388">Keepsakes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJO_Connoisseur/pseuds/PJO_Connoisseur'>PJO_Connoisseur</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Backstory, Character Study, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Loneliness, Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:33:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,741</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27150388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJO_Connoisseur/pseuds/PJO_Connoisseur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which ghosts keep things that remind them what it is to be human.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alex &amp; Luke Patterson &amp; Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Caleb Covington &amp; Willie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>189</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Keepsakes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Alex has worn a fanny pack since he was a kid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke always said he used it to carry around the brain cell they all share, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. Reggie is the Emotional Support Dad Friend, but Alex is the Physical Support Dad Friend. He has a whole first-aid kit he assembled himself with supplies swiped from his parents’ bathroom stuffed into a sparkly pencil pouch: bandages, antiseptic spray, gauze and cloth tape, tweezers. Luke was usually the one who needed the stuff, but Reggie came in a close second. Alex himself was the one who managed to keep his clothes clean and his knees un-scrapped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t need the first-aid kit anymore, just like he doesn’t need the inhaler for his asthma. Ghosts don’t have asthma, although sometimes Alex swears he can’t breathe, and it’s almost like he’s alive again. He can’t help thinking how annoying it is that the asthma went away but the anxiety didn’t, but maybe that’s evident that his mind is still fully intact after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In life Alex was never certain of the other things he’d find in his fanny pack. Sometimes there were ticket stubs from their shows and concerts Luke drove them all to in his parents’ car. Sometimes there were knick-knacks from the thrift shop. Sometimes it was crumpled bills, usually a few singles, but sometimes something bigger. All of it was put there by Luke or Reggie. The ticket stubs were from Luke, who was incredibly attached to collecting mementos but never explained why. The knick-knacks were from Reggie, who liked to buy Alex and Luke small gifts that reminded him of them. The money was from either or both, always following an instance where Alex said he wasn’t hungry or that he thought frayed shoes were very punk rock. They always found a way to take care of him without talking about it, and that was probably the thing he appreciated about them most.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In death Alex still finds surprises in his fanny pack, slipped in while he wasn’t watching just like before. There are no more tickets, shopping is off the table, and money means nothing, so his friends turn notes into the new thing. Luke gives him bits of song lyrics, always uplifting and optimistic, and they usually find their way into a later song. Reggie stashes jokes, random thoughts, and compliments. Their support is still there, little bursts of encouragement waiting for him whenever he needs it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alex would never admit it, but he saves all the notes his friends give him. He doesn’t need bandages or help breathing anymore, but he does need reminders that there is something that hasn’t changed. That no matter what happens, he still has his family to catch him if he falls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reggie’s signature outfit was assembled from other people’s wardrobes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the band initially formed, performance personas did too. Luke was the leading man, the heartthrob; Alex was the shy one, the gentleman; and Bobby was the mysterious one, the enigma. They all had their individual appeals while Reggie floated somewhere in between them all, less distinct, which became an identity in its own right. Still, they were all tied together by the classic rock band image. Except Reggie, whose personality and style were all soft edges. Bobby gave him one of his studded belts to make him fit in a bit more. A soft guy with a studded belt was less soft and more tough-but-sensitive, so maybe that was his appeal in the end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first time he spent the night at Alex’s house, it was the middle of winter and the heat wasn’t working. While Alex had always been a human radiator, Reggie had always run cold, shivering away in Alex’s bed while Alex was trying to sleep on the floor beside him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Trying</span></em><span>, Alex would always emphasize when he told the story, because Reggie couldn’t stop his teeth from clattering. Alex threw a soft red flannel at him that Reggie spent the entire night snuggling with like it was a childhood security blanket. Even though Reggie tried to return it in the morning, Alex said it looked better on him anyway and refused to take it back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On Luke’s sixteenth birthday, Luke received the leather jacket he’d been pining after up until that point. Real leather, heavy and warm, a perfect match for his rock band heartthrob aesthetic. If there was anyone in the band who should have been wearing a leather jacket, that person was Luke. He wore it around for the rest of the party even though he must have been too warm, and when he finally took it off, it was only to allow Reggie to try it on. The jacket was a bit bigger on Reggie than Luke, but it still felt like a hug, which is exactly what he told his friends. After the party Luke sent the jacket with him, telling him he could borrow it until Luke needed it for a special occasion. Luke never asked for it back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Reggie stills wears everything given to him, a patchwork outfit that makes a cohesive whole anyway, more or less generic pieces that have been turned into a defining look. They’re no longer just a belt, flannel, and jacket, but a part of Reggie himself. After finding out what Bobby did, Reggie considered getting rid of the belt but couldn’t do it. It is just as much a part of his history as the rest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reggie would never admit it, but he gives Bobby the benefit of the doubt. None of them know what happened in the twenty-five years they were gone, and he remembers what it was like to have his guilt presumed. Perhaps most importantly, he can’t help but believe the Bobby he knew wouldn’t screw them over without a reason.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke has never gotten rid of a music notebook.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He started writing music in elementary school, so at this point his collection of notebooks could be considered hoarding, but he still has a crate dedicated to them in his old bedroom. In the oldest ones his hand-writing is illegible to anyone but himself, which is probably a good thing. Despite how Alex and Reggie talk about him sometimes, he did not come out of the womb writing grade A song lyrics and melodies, and his earliest drafts are downright embarrassing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he was a kid, he was mostly drawn to pop, and the first time he tried writing a song, he was ten and attempted to set a poem about loving ice cream to an upbeat tune. The whole thing was a disaster, from the subject matter to the words to the music. Given all the hobbies Luke tried and abandoned at that age, he reasonably should have dropped music right there. Which he did, until he had a proper introduction to rock, and then everything made sense again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke’s next several songs were also bad, but each time he could see the seeds of something good in them, the beginnings of something </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span></em><span>. When he was thirteen, he wrote “My Name Is Luke,” the first song of his that came out the way he wanted it to. Admittedly it was still pretty embarrassing, a self-indulgent ode to his exaggerated teenage angst, but it was authentic. Digging into his life and laying it out as honestly as he could on the page made Luke finally find his voice. From there, Sunset Curve was born, and his new family gave him all the inspiration he could ever need.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luke would never admit it, but sometimes when he visits his parents he goes up to his room and pages through his old music notebooks. Some of the songs make him cringe with how amateur they are, but there’s a certain genuinity to them in their own way. They’re evidence that he’s grown and improved since then, that he himself has changed due to all the happiness and pain love has brought him. That he is still capable of love and change, even in death.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Willie doesn’t go anywhere without his skateboard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he was in sixth grade, he had a crush on a classmate who always hung out at the skatepark. As soon as the feelings set in, he began saving up to buy a skateboard. $50 was a fortune to a twelve-year-old, but he was certain when Aaron noticed him and was impressed by his sweet moves, the cost would be worth it. What actually happened was he came to the skatepark with his brand new board and wiped out on his first several tries. Aaron made fun of him, killing the crush then and there. Willie slowly learned to skate, but he did so exclusively on the streets after that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Willie was in eighth grade, his middle-of-nowhere school got a foreign exchange student. He wasn’t sure why anyone would knowingly go there, but he didn’t care. This new boy didn’t know him—he didn’t know that he always cried at the end of Toy Story 3, or that he loved braids and nail polish, or that he liked musicals, or any of the other stuff the other boys made fun of him for. He was a clean slate, and all he wanted was to be his friend. He managed it at first. But Willie was a bad actor, and pretty soon all the softness came flowing out, and the foreign exchange student joined the in-crowd in leaving him out. And if Willie cried in the bathroom over it, no one had to know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Willie was a sophomore at a new school in the city, he thought he found camaraderie. Detention for skating in the hallways introduced him to the punks. They also liked skateboarding and graffiti, the later of which Willie learned from his younger sister. Finally, there were people he had something in common with. Then there were the intellectuals, who he met when he tutored other students, because science and numbers had always been languages he understood. Plus there were the artists, who he could talk to for hours about both classic and modern art and who appreciated his sensitivity. But he was too caring and smart for the punks, too deviant and emotional for the intellectuals, and too logical and unlawful for the artists. In the end, he was both too much and too little for all of them, so he was on his own again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Willie was a senior, he died. On the run from the cops after he broke into a museum, he skated into traffic and quickly came to regret it. Death didn’t affect his existence as much as he would have thought. He was lonely before and he’s lonely now. Caleb Covington is the first ghost he meets. More importantly, Caleb is the first person in years Willie feels actually wants to know him. There’s a home in the Hollywood Ghost Club, and Willie is so relieved to have one he almost doesn’t mind giving up his soul for the chance to stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Willie would never admit it, but all he wants is for people to like him. He wants to skate and make art and learn about the world and wear nail polish and braid his hair and pour all his emotion into everything he does without any of those things getting in the way of the others. Without any of it being the reason someone can’t accept him. So when Alex, someone who actually seems to like him for him, needs something, Willie does everything he can to make it happen, even if part of him knows it’s a bad idea. He can’t handle anyone else walking away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Caleb keeps the deck of cards he first learned magic with in his pocket.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he was a kid, home was not a concept that existed. Instead, there were just places he happened to live at the time, foster homes that never seemed to want him for too long. He was the kid they generously looked after for a while, not the one that ever had a chance of becoming part of the family. He had no family.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he did have was a small allowance and a toy store within walking distance. At eight years old he was convinced that if he bought a kit for invisible ink and covered himself in the end product, he would disappear. For a child who was unwanted but prevented from running away, the prospect was tempting. In the end he didn’t manage to turn invisible, but he did earn himself a new foster home and a new hobby.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Caleb quickly learned that although simple magic tricks didn’t endear him to potential families, they did endear him to other foster children. He wasn’t loved, but he was admired in a small way, and maybe that was enough. Magic taught him the art of performance and manipulation, and if that was the way he could get people to respect him, then so be it. Personality was a skill that could be learned. Eventually he became good enough at his act, both in magic and persona, that he did manage to land a family, at least in legality. They didn’t know or love the real him, but they were </span>
  <em>
    <span>there</span></em><span>, and maybe that was enough, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Caleb played to people’s wants and expectations so often that the lines between his reality and his fiction became blurred. But if he was just giving them what they desired, how could he be judged for that? And if adoration over a show was the best he could hope for from other people, then how could anyone blame him for taking it? Respect was more solid than love. He didn’t know how to generate love, but he knew how to generate respect. And still that was enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was perhaps ironic, then, that he should die doing a magic trick. In his final moments, when he knew he was dying but only just realized no one could save him, he noted how his fear right then was the most authentic he’d felt in years. If he’d gone to some sort of afterlife, maybe he would have carried that thought with him. As it was, the end was just a new beginning, and that thought died along with his body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Death presented Caleb with new opportunities. Sunset Curve’s performance-night death gave them musical abilities, Willie’s traffic-related death gave him vehicular abilities, and Caleb’s magic trick death? It seemed to give him the ability to appear however he wanted. Flying, being seen and heard by lifers, and perhaps other tricks he was yet to learn. What he knew for sure was that his performance was far from over. He was alone again, but that could be remedied with charisma—and, when charisma didn’t work, forcing them to stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In life Caleb had an audience and friends who fell for his illusions. In death he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>power</span></em><span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Real</span>
  </em>
  <span> power, and people had to stay with him whether they liked it or not. Together they created a show unlike any other, connecting two worlds in an arena where he was the champion. The lifers he performed for were addicted to what he could offer them, hooked in a way his mortal audience never could have been. And the other performers got to be a part of that! They were lucky to be surrounded by exaltation if it couldn’t be love.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Caleb would never admit it, but sometimes, alone in his dressing room, he performed the first card trick he ever learned. No ghost magic, just a trick, from before performance and persona became his identity. Simplicity at its finest, and sometimes he considered if he’d want to go back to that time. Maybe do things differently. Authentically. But here he was in an empire he created, drinking in praise in a different city each night. Loneliness tasted the same in every language, but the souls he captured couldn’t leave him. He always needed to choose between respect and love, and he always chose the former. They respected him, they talked to him. They were a pseudo-family, even if it wasn’t real, even if they hated him. And that had to be enough. Because if it wasn’t, what else was there?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is humanity in needing other people, in whatever way we can have them, for better or for worse.</span>
</p>
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